Microsoft Teams gets Safe Link feature to curb phishing attacks

Thanks to the Covid-19-induced pandemic Work-from-Home (WFH) has become the new normal around the world. However, with more people conducting meetings and communicating on digital systems, it is attracting cybercriminals to prey on people using phishing techniques such as emails, SMS on phones to get into corporate company's private network to install malware to steal trade secrets.

Also, lately, there has been a surge in reports of several big corporations on the Fortune 500 list falling victim to ransomware. Some have succumbed to the threats and paid the ransom, while others resorted to a complete reboot of their communication network. In both circumstances, it has cost huge expenses to companies to recover from the disruption of service.

Now, Redmond-based company has begun releasing new updates with critical security features to its Microsoft Teams platform that offers both text and multi-media-based communication services.

Once updated to the latest version, Microsoft Teams will get a Safe Link feature that scans and analyse URLs to let the user know if the webpage link attached in the mail is safe or malicious in nature.

Microsoft says that every month, the company's detonation systems detect close to two million distinct URL-based payloads that attackers create to orchestrate credential phishing campaigns. Each month, our systems block over 100 million phishing emails that contain these malicious URLs.

It should be noted that Microsoft Teams has registered 250 million monthly active users on compatible devices including PCs. In mobile alone, it has more than 80 million active users and recently, total calls surpassed one billion in a single month.

Must read | What is phishing? Here's how to prevent online fraud

With the new update, Microsoft Teams gets a new layer of security to protect not only individual users' devices but also corporate companies, which subscribe to Microsoft 365 services. The latter will offer a Safe Link feature in all its apps such as Word and PowerPoint, Office apps on iOS and Android, and Office Online.

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